Open Source Software

Here is a list of open source software for technical writers.


Open Source Software


Open source software refers to a software or program that is written in source code that is available to the general public. A source code is a form of the program when a programmer writes a program in a programming language, such as Java or Perl. Source codes are can be as small as a couple lines of text and as large as a millions of lines of text.

Open source software is similar to Closed source software (Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Office), but it is more affordable.

The most common Open Source Software:

OpenOffice Suite (or NeoOffice for Mac)
http://www.neooffice.org/
http://www.openoffice.org/
Similar to: Microsoft Office Suite

Inkscape (Drawing program)
http://inkscape.org/
Similar to: Illustrator

GIMP (Photo editing program)
http://www.gimp.org/
Similar to: Adobe Photoshop

Scribus (Desktop publishing)
http://www.scribus.net/canvas/Scribus
Similar to: Microsoft Publisher and Quark Xpress

Mozilla Thunderbird (Email application)
http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/
Similar to: Microsoft Outlook

Bluefish (HTML Editor)
http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/index.html
Similar to: Dreamweaver

For more information:
http://www.damicon.com/resources/opensoftware.html